


Afraid of Heights

by sea_level



Category: Project Blue Book (TV)
Genre: M/M, Winged Allen Hynek, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 14:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18703963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sea_level/pseuds/sea_level
Summary: Michael remembers falling. He remembers tracking down the man who’d come up with the fake alien story, the one who’d turned violent when the truth came to light. He remembers the barrel of the .45 pressing into his forehead. He remembers the man pushing just a little too far, just a little too hard, and he remembers tipping over the edge of the skyscraper and then—nothing.





	Afraid of Heights

**Author's Note:**

> technically a song title!!! (afraid of heights by billy talent) i never really thought about it but i guess it kind of fits?
> 
> @ anon sorry i am very slow at writing :(
> 
> time setting ambiguous. probably not 100% compliant to the 1950s haha

Michael remembers falling. He remembers tracking down the man who’d come up with the fake alien story, the one who’d turned violent when the truth came to light. He remembers the barrel of the .45 pressing into his forehead. He remembers the man pushing just a little too far, just a little too hard, and he remembers tipping over the edge of the skyscraper and then—nothing.

“That can’t be all, doc,” Michael says, rubbing his eyes again, but the drowsiness doesn’t go away. “You’re telling me it was all just a dream? That I fell asleep in the office?”

"Considering you were just sleeping right there on your desk," Allen says, "I'd say yes."

Michael groans. "This doesn't make any sense. I was so sure..."

“We got a tip that Abbott was in the city, but it turned out to be a dead end, so we came back here,” Allen explains. “If I had to guess, that’s where your dream came from.”

“Wait, did someone get Abbott, then?” Michael asks. He pushes himself up, using the table to steady himself, but he feels more unstable than normal. Something had to have happened. He’s not usually this disoriented.

“Soldiers picked him up at his house,” Allen replies. “I don’t know how he could have been up there with you if he was down on the ground the entire time.”

Logically, it makes perfect sense, but his brain just won't accept it. Michael doesn’t want distrust Allen, but he needs to know the truth. When he contacts the soldiers listed as the parties who made the arrest though, they just confirm what Allen had told him. Edwin Abbott had been apprehended at his residence. He was in his bedroom, packing for what looked like an extended vacation, his passport and papers lying on the kitchen table.

Everything that Allen said had happened had happened, but Michael still struggles to accept what he had said as truth. Something just isn’t sitting right.

When he falls asleep that night (and he’s definitely sure he’s actually asleep this time), he dreams of flying. There’s nothing to facilitate his flight. No plane, no helicopter, no glider, no anything, it’s just him and the open air. He catches a brief flash of feathers out of the corner of his eyes, but when he twists to look, there’s nothing there.

 

Michael tries to put his concerns to rest, but for some reason, they won’t stay down. He tries to bring it up again, but the look Allen gives him is so pitying that he clams up immediately.

In a way, it’s worse than the war, because pushing it down deep doesn’t work, and work doesn’t do anything distract from it. A nice morning jog to clear his head lets his mind wander right onto the topic of _what the fuck happened_. And _why won't his brain just drop it already?_

Something is missing from his memory, and he doesn’t know what it is or how it disappeared from there in the first place.

 

“I need you to hypnotize me,” Michael says after another finished case. He’s struggling through the report, trying to focus on the details, but his mind keeps wandering. He hasn’t had this much trouble focusing since he was a kid, and it’s starting to drive him a little insane. It doesn’t help that he constantly feels like there’s something in the corner of his eye, hiding just out of sight.

“I’m sorry?” Allen looks up from his own desk. He finishes writing whatever sentence he’d started and then puts his pencil down. He knits his fingers together and looks at Michael with undisguised concern.

“Like you did with Thomas Mann,” Michael says. “He experienced something that he couldn’t remember properly. I think the same thing happened to me.”

Allen stares at him but doesn’t say anything, and something strange comes over his visage, something almost like...regret?

“I can’t help but feel like something’s missing from my memory,” Michael says. He’s given up talking to Allen about this so many times before, but he can’t let this keep going. It’s starting to seriously interfere with his work and his life, and he needs to resolve this as soon as possible. “It’s like my mind’s working overtime trying to figure out what’s in that gap.”

“This is my fault,” Allen says abruptly. He stands, the legs of the chair making a sound as they scrape against the ground. “Something did happen. I’ll explain everything, but it’s better if I show you rather than tell you.”

Michael feels a flash of fear and something like betrayal. Allen’s been keeping things from him again. And they’d been doing so well too.

“What happened?” Michael asks. “What did you do?”

Allen leans over his desk to pick the car keys off from the spot that he’d left them. “Trust me?” he asks, and Michael complies immediately.

Trust me. Allen doesn’t exactly have a good track record with being trustworthy, and Michael isn’t exactly known for trusting people, but each time Allen says those words, Michael is powerless to resist.

The drive that Allen takes them on is long, and he doesn’t even seem to have a particular destination in mind because he keeps scoping out the land and shaking his head like each place won’t suit his specific purposes. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because if Allen’s supposed to be showing him something, then why isn’t he heading to a concrete destination?

They wind up, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. Allen takes the car so far off the main road that they’re surrounded by open fields on all sides, framed only by the mountains and the horizon.

“Is there supposed to be something out here?” Michael asks, getting out of the car. He rests his arms on the hood of the car and watches as Allen scopes out the land.

“No,” Allen says. “I was looking for someplace where we wouldn’t be interrupted.”

And, yeah, if that’s not suspicious as hell.

“What’s going on,” Michael says cautiously. “Should I be worried?”

“Worried?” Allen asks. “No. Maybe?” He smiles a little nervously, and a bit of Michael’s fear falls away.

“Maybe?” Michael asks as he follows Allen away from the car.

“I’ve never shown anyone this before,” Allen says and moves his hands hesitantly up to his tie, “but...I trust you.”

Allen sighs and sheds his coat, shirt, undershirt, and tie and hands them to Michael, leaving himself bare-chested in the cool spring breeze. It’s all rather confusing, but Michael’ll be damned if he says something and stops Allen from doing whatever he’s going to do.

Slowly, Allen steps back further and further until there are a good ten feet of distance between them. He closes his eyes and spreads his arms a little, and, from out of nowhere, a pair of massive wings sprout from his back. They unfold slowly until they reach a massive total wingspan of, if Michael had to guess, about thirty feet.

“Jesus,” Michael breathes. They’re soaring wings, wide and tall and good for catching air. The feathers are a beautiful dark brown, the coverts edged in white. They’re a little lacking in care, but it doesn’t detract from how majestic they are.

“I imagine this is rather weird,” Allen says, and the tips of his wings sweep in and brush the ground self consciously.

“It is a little weird,” Michael says, taking a few steps forward. “I can see why you kept this a secret.”

“Didn’t want anyone thinking I was an alien,” Allen says somewhat humorously.

“Ha.” Michael laughs. “So what happened? Did I really fall off that skyscraper?”

Allen looks uncomfortable, but he replies. “You did.”

“And you caught me?” Michael asks. It’s not too much of a leap to guess.

“Yeah,” Allen says, “but I couldn’t have you remember that, so I tried to hypnotize you to forget. Obviously didn’t take very well.”

“Bit of an understatement,” Michael snorts. “And Abbott?”

“Oh, I knocked him out, took him back to him home, and told him to flee the country,” Allen says.

“You—I’m sorry, you did what?” Michael asks incredulously.

“And then I sent in the soldiers, so everything worked out.”

“I didn’t know you were capable of that, doc,” Michael says. It’s a little scary but a lot more impressive.

“It was the fear, mostly. Fear of being found out,” he says, and then adds a little more softly, “Fear of losing you.”

Michael doesn’t really have anything sufficient to reply with, so he lets his silence do the talking, confident that Allen will understand. “Thank you,” he says, once the moment’s passed.

“Anytime.”

“Really botched that hypnotism job, though,” Michael says.

“Yeah.” Allen laughs. “I’m sorry about that. Anything else I can explain to make it up to you?”

“How did you get them? Your wings?” Michael asks.

“The working theory is Halley’s Comet,” Allen says. “When I was born, my mom wished that I could touch the stars. My guess is that her wish was granted, in a bit of a roundabout way.”

“That’s a little far out there,” Michael says. It’s certainly not the explanation he was expected, especially from someone as scientific as Allen.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Allen replies, shrugging, but the simple motion has a huge ripple effect as his wings move to match. They stir up a small wind, and Michael realizes that if Allen were to really try, he could easily blow him off his feet. “These wings best match those from the Rüppell's griffon vulture, the highest flying bird that we know of. 37,000 feet.”

Michael whistles. “Have you ever gone up that high?”

Allen shakes his head. “No. In theory, there wouldn’t be enough oxygen that high for me to survive, and my flight muscles are a little weak, and I’m...ah. It’s embarrasing.”

“You’re what?” Michael prompts.

“I’m afraid of heights,” Allen says. “I get a little too high, and I start thinking about what would happen if I fell. I’ve done the math. It’s not pretty.”

“And yet you got into a plane with me on the first case,” Michael points out.

“Is that supposed to help?” Allen asks. “We literally crashed.” He pulls his wings in but holds them above his head. They’re tall enough that they’d brush against the ground if he’d simply folded them to his back. The wings are definitely too large for day-to-day life, but Michael imagines they’d be wonderful for flying.

“And we lived to die another day,” Michael continues. “Maybe it’s just me.”

“It’s definitely just you, pilot,” Allen says. The corner of his mouth pulls up slightly.

“Pity,” Michael says. He gives the wings a considering look. “Can I touch?”

“I suppose so,” Allen says. He brings down the wing that’s closer to Michael, effectively making a small, closed space around them. The other wing blocks out a good amount of the light, but it is illuminated at points where the feather cover is thin.

Here in this wide, isolated plain, their world is reduced to just a pinprick.

Michael touches the feathers lightly at first, but Allen pushes his wing up against Michael’s hands.

“They’re a little sensitive,” Allen says. “A firmer touch is better.”

“With the grain, right?” Michael asks. He doesn’t have the first clue how to preen feathers, and there are quite a few feathers out of place, but he imagines it's pretty straightforward.

“I wouldn’t know, actually,” Allen says. “I obviously don’t have them out most of the time, and most of the feathers are out of reach anyways. It’s hardly ever a problem.”

Michael finds a feather the size of his hand that’s skewed out of place, so he straightens it. Allen makes a little noise.

“Oh,” he says. “That’s nice.”

“What about when you were a kid?” Michael asks.

“My mom would do it,” Allen says, “with limited efficacy. By the time I started to my postjuvenile molt, my wings were about as large as they are now. It’s always been something of a predicament, but it’s never been much of a real problem.”

Michael moves another feather into its proper place, and Allen makes another pleased sound.

“Seriously, though,” Allen says. “You’re taking this a lot better than I expected.”

“I mean, I’m definitely more than a little weirded out,” Michael says, “but I’m too in love to care.”

“With my wings?” Allen asks, amused.

“Pretty much,” Michael says, and damn if Allen’s not beautiful like this. Nothing about the professor really screams “powerful” normally. Maybe a little dangerous sometimes, but Allen’s usually just very mild-mannered. Here, he’s still got that calm and that innocent charm, but the wings give him an edge. He handles them with enough ease that they look like a natural part of him instead of something that was just superficially attached.

“You’re very funny,” Allen says and pulls his wings back just a little to open their little cocoon up to the world. The cold air that rushes in has an almost sobering effect. Michael makes a sound of disappointment.

“I’m going to put them away now,” Allen continues. “We really should be getting back.”

Allen’s right, of course. They should leave now if they want to get back to base by nightfall, but Michael can’t stop the disappointed look that comes over his face.

“Come on,” Allen says with a laugh. “You’ve still got me.”

“Yeah,” Michael says. “Can’t beat that.”

 

The first time Allen kisses him, they’ve just survived another one of those “alien encounters”. It’s one of those scary ones, one of those ones where they’re inches away from a close call, where the strange lights and the chaos they brought with them are gone as soon as they’d appeared, and, in the darkness, all they’re left with is their adrenaline and their anxieties.

Allen pushes Michael up against the car, and his wings come forth on their own volition, wrapping around the vehicle in a protective shell.

In the past, Michael would never have thought a kiss could be truly described as life-affirming. Now, though, with Allen holding him tight and very enthusiastically licking into his mouth, Michael knows that they’re both well and truly alive.

Allen’s skin is warm, and his wings are soft, and the heat they generate together is enough to keep his soul singing and singing and singing.

**Author's Note:**

> still working on that longfic.....slowly.........surely  
> this was yet another intermission lmao. it got stuck in my head so what can you do


End file.
